Should a Local Church Session Administer the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper During the Present Lock-Down Situation?

In taping or livestreaming their services. My own congregation has done this several times, and it has been simultaneously a blessing to have the technology to remain connected and a horror that the church is left with a facsimile of corporate worship.

A few days after the Australian government introduced limitations on gatherings and ministers realised that churches would have to meet on-line, several ministers asked me about the Lord’s Supper. I wrote a response and circulated it around the Presbyterian Churches in our state.

What follows is not intended to be a scholarly paper, exegeting Scripture and drawing on learned sources, it is rather a more or less spontaneous reflection on the challenge of whether or not Reformed Protestant Christians should seek a cyber experience of the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is a sacred meal for Christians. It expresses our fellowship within the body of Christ, both among fellow members of Christ’s body, and also with the head of that body, our risen Lord. Three elements of the Lord’s Supper are found in Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians.

Cowper’s 18th century song rings true: when comforts are declining, God grants to the soul a season of light to cheer us again.

Our (Australian) Prime Minister has said, more than once, that we’re facing significant deprivation of comforts and such hardship that we’ve not seen for generations – even as far back as the two world wars.

In December 2015 many were shocked when President Yahya Jammeh declared The Gambia to be an “Islamic Republic.” The July 2014 declaration of a Caliphate by ISIS echoed in our memories. These concerns began to recede in January 2017, when the new president, Adama Barrow, restored the older name, “Republic of The Gambia.”

The coronavirus had one huge advantage: the element of surprise. It gave no advance warning, no early danger-signs, not even a gradual evolution. One mutation, and suddenly it was there, invisible and unstoppable.

COVID-19, which has so spectacularly brought the world to its knees, is a particularly deadly member of the Coronavirus family.  Corona is Latin for garland.  In Spanish it means crown.  It is also the brand name of a globally successful Mexican beer. 

Isn’t abortion just terrible? Babies are human! If you don’t think they are, then you’re buddying up with those Nazis who were glad to slaughter Jews, since they’re Untermenschen, subhuman. Yes, it’s terrible, so what can we do about it?

Islam has been an important part of American life going back at least to the 1940’s, although history indicates Muslims have actually been a part of our country’s founding from the eighteenth century. 

In my first post, I critiqued the Nashville Statement for areas in which it conflicted with the Westminster Standards, particularly in its understanding of sin. In this post I want to engage with gay Christianity’s Side B.